E.K. Schreiber Rare Books

September 2014 List

Recent Acquisitions of 15th-17th-Century Books

285 Central Park West . New York, NY 10024

Telephone: (212) 873-3180; (212) 873-3181

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***Visitors by Appointment Only***

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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An Unnoticed EDITIO PRINCEPS

1 . ALCUIN [i.e. AELRED of Rievaulx, Saint]. Sermo notabilis Domini Alcuini abbatis magistri quondam Karoli magni de xi. oneribus isaie prophete pulcherrime moralizatis. [Cologne: Johannes Landen, c. 1505]. SOLD

Small 8vo (138 x 100 mm), [10] leaves: a6b4; gothic type; woodcut illustration on title verso: Christ Carrying His Cross; rubricated throughout. Modern vellum over boards.

Unnoticed FIRST EDITION of a work by the English Cistercian abbot and saint, Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167). The authorship appears to have escaped notice due both to the little book’s extreme rarity (only five copies are known: see below), and to its title and prefatory biographical note attributing the text to Alcuin of York (735-804), the adviser of Charlemagne.

This work by Aelred (also known as Ailred, Ethelred,

etc.) consists of the introductory sermon to his 31 homilies on Isaiah 13-30, here titled, De xi. oneribus Isaiae Prophetae ('On the Eleven Burdens of the Prophet Isaiah'), referring to the oracles (i.e. burdens) against the nations before the establishment of the reign of the Messiah.

This text was until now believed to have first been printed over a century later, in the Douai 1616 edition of Aelred's works (Shaaber A64); the text was reprinted two years later in Vol. 13 of M. de La Bigne's Magna Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum (Cologne, 1618: Shaaber A65).

This first edition is not noticed in Shaaber's Check-list of Works of British Authors Printed Abroad (either s.v. Aelred or Alcuin); the combined resources of OCLC, KVK, and VD16 locate a total of five copies, all in German and Swiss collections, and all catalogued s.v. 'Alcuinus': Augsburg, Basel, Cologne, Hannover (Leibniz Biblothek), and Trier.

§ VD16, A1695 (‘Alcuinus’).

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

3

The Synagogue vs. the Church

2 . ALTERCATIO. Altercatio Synagogae et Ecclesiae, in qua bona omnium fere utriusque Instrumenti librorum pars explicatur. Cologne: Melchior von Neuss, September 1537. SOLD

Folio (315 x 207 mm), [8], 118 leaves: [*]6, a2, A4, B-V6; roman type, text in two columns; large woodcut on title, repeated on fol. A1; half-page woodcut on fol. a1; historiated woodcut initials. Contemporary limp vellum with overlapping fore-edges; binding somewhat stained; light dampstains on title and in some margins; old inscription at head of dedication erased leaving some upper marginal small holes, with paper repair on verso. Overall a good copy.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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FIRST EDITION of a debate between Judaism and Christianity, personified in the title as the Synagogue and the Church, and further personified in the text as the Jewish scholar Gamaliel and the Apostle Paul.

The author of this dialogue has remained unknown but, from remarks in the preface, is believed to have lived during the time of Charlemagne. Authorship has been variously attributed to Gilbert Crispin (c. 1055-1117), an Anglo-Norman abbot of Westminster Abbey, under whose name the work is sometimes catalogued, and to the 12th-century theologian Konrad von Hirsau (R. Bultot, "L'auteur de l' 'Altercatio Synagogae et Ecclesiae: Conrad d'Hirsau?', Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 32, 1965, pp. 263-76).

Such Altercationes, in which the representative of Judaism was invariably humbled, were a popular literary genre used by the medieval Church as proselytizing tools; thus, it has been suggested that the present Altercatio (of which only one other edition is known [1540]) may have been influenced by the fifth-century Altercatio Simonis Iudaei et Theophili Christiani ("Dialogue of the Jew Simon and the Christian Theophilus").

The large title woodcut, repeated on on fol. A1, represents Christ and Moses flanked by Gamaliel and Paul; the half-page woodcut on fol. a1, represents the allegorical figure of Wisdom (Sapientia).

§ VD16, A1996; Adams A-814.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Extremely Rare Comedy of Errors

3 . ANGELONI, Francesco. Gl' irragionevoli amori. Comedia. Venice: Giorgio Bizzardo, 1611. SOLD

12mo (126 x 70 mm), 82, [2] leaves (including last blank); woodcut printer's device on title. Modern vellum-backed boards; early signature in blue ink at head of title-page: “Giuseppe Bevilacqua”; bookplate of Luca G. Mimbelli, of Livorno, with his oval stamp on final blank; dampstained in lower margins; a few fore-margins cropped, but never affecting printing.

FIRST EDITION (issued with date 1610 or 1611) of one of the two comedies published by Francesco Angeloni of Terni (1587-1652), secretary of cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini, the future Pope Clement VIII, to whom this play is dedicated. Angeloni was a member of the Accademia degli Insensati of Perugia under the name ‘Tenebroso.’

The convoluted plot of Angeloni’s Gl’ irragionevoli amori (“Unreasonable Loves”) contains no shortage of misunderstandings and recognitions, with characters corresponding to the traditional types derived from the commedia dell'arte.

Faithful to its genre, this prose play is a comedy of errors and imbroglios: a young man falls in love with a woman who has been brought up under an assumed name; they eventually find out that they are both brother and sister, but a later event reveals that this is an error, and they are able to marry.

Very rare: the only copy held by an American collection appears to be that at Harvard.

Angeloni’s only other published comedy, Flora, is in a similar vein. Besides these two comedies Angeloni wrote a great number of novellas inspired by Boccaccio, Bandello, Parabosco, Cervantes, at al. His most celebrated work remains the Historia Augusta (Rome, 1641), a history of the

Roman emperors based on his own fabulous collection of ancient medals; by the intermediacy of the painter Nicolas Poussin Angeloni was allowed to dedicate the work to Louis XIV. Angeloni’s other important historical work was his description of his native Umbrian town, Historia di Terni (Rome, 1646).

§ Graesse, Suppl., 35; BL STC 17C, I, p.38.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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The Last Estienne Greek New Testament: Of Utmost Rarity

4 . BIBLE. NEW TESTAMENT. Greek. Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη. Novum Testamentum. Obscuriorum vocum & quorundam loquendi generum accuratae magnaeque accessiones, Is. Casauboni, Henr. Stephani & aliorum ... Notae & interpretationes. Editio postrema. (Ed. H. Estienne & I. Casaubon). [Geneva]: Paul Estienne, for Samuel Crespin, 1617. SOLD

16mo, [24], 360 leaves, [361]-456 pages; title-page printed in red and black with the Estienne device [Schreiber 35]; Greek type for text, roman for summaries and notes; typographical headpieces. Contemporary smooth calf, flat spine lettered in gilt; binding with considerable surface wear, especially at head and tail of spine; upper joint split. PROVENANCE: Ownership signature on title of Sir Robert Throckmorton, 1st Baronet (1599-1650), and his armorial bookplate with his motto, 'Virtus Sola Nobilitas' (bookplate partly

protruding onto the inner margin of title-page, and partly obscured by the later booklabel of Mount St. Bernard Abbey). In the lower margin of the title is the old stamp "GENEVAE" (see below).

Surprisingly rare pocket Greek Testament, printed by Paul Estienne, son and successor of Henri II Estienne, for the account of Samuel Crespin, scion of another Geneva printing dynasty.

This is the only Greek Testament printed by Paul Estienne, as well as the last to be produced by any member of the Estienne dynasty. The volume opens with Henri II Estienne's 12-page preface to the Reader, reprinted from his 1587 edition (Darlow & Moule 4648); following the preface are 34 pages consisting of Greek summaries (Kefalaia) of Matthew and Mark; these in turn are followed by the Greek text of the N.T., edited by Robert Estienne, including Latin summaries of the chapters and Greek marginal notes (fol. 1-358), and finally the Greek text of the Creeds (fol. 359-360), Casaubon's notes (pp. [361]-453), reprinted from the 1587 Geneva Vignon edition (Delaveau & Hillard 3701), and the Index (pp. 454-456).

The notes by the eminent Huguenot humanist Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614), son-in-law of the scholar-printer Henri Estienne, were included in relatively few editions of the Greek Testament: three of them in Geneva (E. Vignon, 1587 and 1615, and the present P. Estienne, 1617), two in London (J. Bill, 1622 and R. Whittaker, 1633), and one in Leiden (Elzevier, 1641).

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Catholic censorship insured the destruction of copies of the three Geneva printings, so that these are today quite scarce: thus, of the Vignon 1615 edition there is no copy in any US collection, and the only copy of the present 1617 Estienne edition in an American collection appears to be that at Bowdoin College.

The hand-stamped word ‘Genevae’ at the foot of the title-page, as an addition to the imprint, was used occasionally on copies of Estienne books that were to be sold in such places where the name of the city of Calvin would not result in a ban.

§ Renouard 198: 25; Delaveau & Hillard 3710 (reporting the BNF copy consisting of only the first 24 leaves and Casaubon's notes); not in Darlow & Moule.!

Early Popular Moral and Pedagogical Text: With Manuscript Additions

5 . FACETUS. Liber Faceti docens mores hominum, praecipue iuvenum. Cologne: H. Quentell, [c. 1496]. SOLD

Small 4to (181 x 135 mm), [16] leaves: A-B6C4 (C4 blank); Gothic types: larger for text, smaller for commentary; spaces for the first four capitals, filled in red by a rubricator. Bound in plain, functional 19th-century marbled boards; some dampstains. Early manuscript marginalia; final blank C4 filled with additional relevant texts in an early hand (see below); on the title-page is an ownership inscription dated from Vienna, 1588 (name indecipherable).

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Early edition of this popular moral-pedagogical poem, whose authorship and time of composition remain unknown — though it has been variously attributed to Reinerius Alemannus and John of Garland.

As it title states, this little work was intended primarily for children (‘... praecipue iuvenum’); editions were published in two forms: consisting either of the text alone, or of the text accompanied by a commentary, as in the present edition.

The work's extreme popularity is attested by its numerous editions, each surviving in very few examples: thus of the first four editions, all printed in Paris, c. 1490, only one copy survives of each. (Of the present Cologne edition five copies are known.)

This copy is particularly remarkable in that it contains two additional manuscript pages of related moral texts in a 16th-century hand in the form of Latin poetical quatrains; these were presumably copied by the first owner of this copy from the appendix of one of the early editions of the Renaissance humanist and theologian Jakob Wimpfeling's ethical pedagogical work, Adolescentia; the quatrains promote study (Theodoricus Sorschidius = Dietrich Sorscheit), respect for one's teacher (Martinus Rodenburgensis), and warn against the evils of idleness and waste of time (Petrus Guntherus and Johannes Volmannius), anger (Johannes Spiegel), gossip (Johannes Rockenhausen), and impure thoughts (Paulus Olearius). See another photo on next page…

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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No. 5

§ ISTC if00036600; GW 9680; BMC I, 295; Voull(K) 1009; Polain(B) 4358; not in Goff (though there appears to be a copy at Duke U., according to GW and ISTC).

!

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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With a Series of 21 Woodcut Views of "Greek" Cities

6 . GERBEL[IUS], Nicolaus. Nicolai Gerbelii in descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani, praefatio. Basel: J. Oporinus, September 1545. SOLD

Folio, [4] leaves, 80 pp., [8] leaves (with last blank); Oporinus's Arion printer's device on title, and numerous woodcut historiated initials in various sizes; with 21 woodcut illustrations of town views, and one diagram of latitudes and longitudes.

bound after:

EPIPHANIUS, Saint, Bp. of Constantia in Cyprus. Contra octoaginta haereses opus,Panarium, sive Arcula, aut Capsula Medica appellatum (Tr. Janus Cornarius). Basel: J. Oporinus & J. Herwagen, 1560. [6] leaves, 590 pp., [9] leaves (the last blank); Oporinus's Arion printer's device on title; woodcut historiated initials in various sizes. The two works bound together in contemporary blind-stamped calf over bevelled wooden boards, with two original brass clasps and catches; corners with protective brass fittings; the boards are decorated with roll-tooled borders of biblical figures, some with captions in Hebrew letters; binding surface darkened and faded, making the captions difficult to read; joints cracked but solid; later title-label in second spine compartment; on the the title-page of Epiphanius, which is bound first, is a 17th-century ownership inscription of the Jesuit College of Utrecht.

FIRST EDITION. Nicolaus Gerbel (1485-1560), a Hellenist, friend and collaborator of Erasmus, and friend of Melanchthon and Luther, composed this Praefatio to accompany a map of Greece that the printer J. Oporinus issued that year. This map, the first regional map of Greece, made by Nikolaos Sophianos, a scholar from Corfu, was first published at Rome in 1540 and was re-issued by Oporinus at Basel

in 1544; neither of these two editions has survived. Oporinus re-issued the map in 1545; that third edition too was long believed lost, when, in 2004, an example of it turned up for auction at Sotheby’s, London (Nov. 18, 2004, lot 219). Until that time the map was known only from a 1552 Rome edition (Legrand II, 246) and a 1601 Basel edition (F. Hieronymus, Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen [1992], 292).

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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We now know that Oporinus's 1545 Sophianos map measured a large 31 x 44 inches and was printed on eight octavo sheets (Tolias, op. cit. below, p. 156, with reproduction p. 15 [the map is also reproduced in the 2004 Sotheby's catalogue cited above]). To coincide with the map's publication Oporinus commissioned this Praefatio, or Introduction to it from Nicolaus Gerbel, who devotes the first few pages to introductory remarks on the scholarly uses of the map. The substance of the book comprises a historical and geographical description of Greece, arranged in sections, each of which corresponds to an ancient Greek region or city.

Twenty-one of Gerbel's descriptions are accompanied by woodcut representations of the regions or cities in question; these were cut by the Strassburg artist Christoph Schweicker. The views, each measuring 8 x 12.5 cm., are imaginary, some being reproductions or variants of older woodcuts of German towns here used for Greek towns: thus Thessaloniki (page 40) is represented by a view of Basel, Calydon (page 32) by a view of Munich, and Megalopolis (page 73) by a view of Zurich. At the end is a 12-page Index locorum consisting of a long alphabetical list of the approximately two thousand place-names given on the map, together with their geographical co-ordinates.

II. Second, revised edition of Janus Cornarius's Latin translations of the works of the fourth-century bishop of Constantia, in Cyprus. Epiphanius, a native of Eleutheropolis, Palestine, was one of the most zealous champions of orthodox faith and monastic piety. Cornarius's translation first appeared in 1543.

Of Epiphanius's writings in defense of orthodox belief, the most important is his Panarion, commonly known as the 'Refutation of all the Heresies', in which he described and attacked every heresy known to him — eighty in all — from the founding of the Church.

§ GERBEL. VD16, G1451; Legrand III, 514 (cf. II, 246); Legrand & Pernot 35; Blackmer 676; Adams G-479; F. Hieronymus, Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen (1992), 293; G. Tolias, "Nikolaos Sophianos's Totius Graeciae Descriptio," in Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography, 58:2 (2006), pp. 156-159; EPIPHANIUS. VD16, E1646; Adams E-254; Hoffmann II, 28.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Two Rare Modern Greek Liturgical Texts

7 . GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH. Hermologion. [Greek] Eἱρμολογίον σὺν Θεῶ Ἁγίω, περιέχον πάντας τοὺς εἱρμοὺς τῆς ὀκταήχου τῶν τε δεσποτικῶν. Venice: Antonio Pinelli, 1612. SOLD

8vo, 272 pp. printed in red and black throughout; woodcut printer's device on title, with a larger version at the end.

bound with:

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH. Sulleitourgikon. Ἀkolouθίa τοῦ ἀναγνώστου, ἤγοun τὰ Συλλειτουργικά. Venice: A. Pinelli, 1626. 40 pp., collated A20 (= one quire of 20 leaves); printed in red and black throughout; full-page woodcut Crucifixion on title verso; large woodcut printer's device on title. The two works bound together in contemporary vellum over boards; inside front cover is the bookplate of the architect Colonel Harry Francis Cunningham (1885-1959), with his presentation inscription to Canon Lucas, dated 16/iv/39.

Two extremely rare liturgical works in modern Greek, both printed by the Venetian Antonio Pinelli one of whose specialties was the production of such Greek office books.

The Hermologion (Greek: εἱρμολoγίον) is a liturgical book of the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches that follow the Byzantine Rite; it contains an anthology from the sermons for liturgical singing in Church.

The work opens with a dedicatory epistle in Greek from the printer Antonio Pinelli to Spiliotis Tapinos, administrator of the Greek colony at Venice: cf. Legrand I. no. 10.

II. The Sulleitourgikon (Συλλειτουργικόν) is the Concelebration of the Divine Office (Akolouthia: Ἀkolouθίa) by the entire

congregation.

§ I. Legrand V, no. 29; II. Not in Legrand or Legrand-Pernot, but cf. Legrand I, no. 247: a 1636 edition with identical collation.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Unrecorded Illustrated Edition

8 . IMITATIO CHRISTI (Italian). I Quattro libri di Gio. Gersone, Ne' quali si tratta della imitatione di Christo Giesu, del dispregio del Mondo, & delle sue vanità. Venice: Altobello Salicato, 1579. SOLD

16mo (100 x 70 mm), [12], 321, [1] pp., [1] blank leaf; roman type; with 37 half-page woodcut illustrations; woodcut printer's device at the end. Recent half leather and marbled boards; paper flaws in lower portions of two leaves (c2 and V1, affecting some text on the former); minor repair on leaf X4. Overall a good copy, with fine impressions of the woodcut illustrations.

Unrecorded edition of this anonymous Italian version of the Imitation of Christ, the most widely read and printed devotional work next to the Bible — and, except for the Bible, translated into more languages than any other book. The purpose of this popular manual of spiritual devotion was to instruct Christians how to seek perfection by following Christ as their model.

The work's authorship was for a long time attributed to various spiritual

writers, including, as in the present edition, the French scholar Jean Gerson (1363-1429), Chancellor of the University of Paris; it is now generally accepted as the product of the Dutch ascetical writer Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471).

§ Not in OCLC, KVK, and ICCU (locating Salicato editions of 1580, 1581, and 1588); not in Delaveau, Édition et diffusion de l'Imitation de Jésus-Christ (1470 - 1800); not in De Backer, Essai bibliographique sur le livre De imitatione Christi; not in Copinger, Hand List of what is believed to be the Largest Collection in the World of Editions of "The Imitation of Christ" (1908); not in Adams or STC Italian.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Controversial Plea for Monastic Reform: Only Five Known Copies

9 . JOUENNEAUX, Guy (Guido Juvenalis). Reformationis monastice vindicta seu defensio. Paris: n. pr., for Denys Roce, [c. 1500]. SOLD

Small 8vo (134 x 95 mm), 67 (of 68: without last blank): a-h8, i4 (-i4); gothic type; Roce's publisher's woodcut device [Renouard 1005] on title. Modern vellum over boards; brownish stain in upper inner portion of leaves; tiny round wormhole in first 8 leaves, not affecting text; clean 2-inch cut in last leaf, not affecting text. Marginalia in an early hand, including manuscript chapter numbers.

FIRST EDITION of an influential plea for monastic reform by the humanist and theologian Guy Jouenneaux (also known by his Latin name, Guido Juvenalis [d. 1507]), Abbot of Saint-Sulpice de Bourges. Among Jouenneaux's literary productions were an important commentary on the Comedies of Terence (1492), and an influential French translation of the Rule of St. Benedict which went through numerous editions.

Jouenneaux had been chosen by the Papal Commissary as his coadjutor to visit and reform the monasteries of Benedictine monks and nuns in France, and his reforming energies provoked not only passive resistance but active and public opposition: hence the publication of this Defence of Monastic Reform in answer to certain protests and attacks upon the reformers. In this little book Jouenneaux describes

the abuses and licentiousness of contemporary monks, citing numerous examples of the absence of rule, devotion, and religious discipline in the monasteries.

The bibliography of this work is quite confused due, in part, to the extreme rarity of this first edition, of which a total of five copies are known worldwide (see below); thus, in their analyses of the work, both Renaudet and Coulton were unaware of this first edition, citing the text from the second edition of 1503: see A. Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme à Paris, p. 354, and G.G. Coulton, French Monasticism in 1503 (1915), p. 3.

Furthermore, the misdescription of the Cornell copy listed in Goff (V-295) has conjured up an outright ghost edition. The Cornell copy— incidentally the only copy located in an American collection — was mistakenly described as a quarto

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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and, because it lacks its title-leaf, it is catalogued not under its author but under the wording of the title found on the first page of text. From its listing in Goff this ghost edition was then cited in other bibliographies and catalogues: ISTC, GW, and Pettegrew & Walsby (see references below), all of which list one and the same edition twice, with different format and title.

We may therefore conclude that only two (and not three) editions of this work are known: the present undated first edition, and the second, printed by Jean Barbier for Marnef in 1503, with the text revised by J. Badius Ascensius (Moreau I, p. 107, no. 84).

Of this first edition five copies are known: one in France (Paris BN); two in Germany (München BSB; Stuttgart WLB); one in Italy (Palermo); and one in US (Cornell [lacking title]).

§ ISTC ij00671500 = ij00671600; GW M15906 = M37226; A. Pettegree & M. Walsby (eds.), French Books III & IV. Books published in France before 1601 in Latin and Languages other than French, vol. II (Leiden 2012), p. 1030, no. 75851=7585; Goff V-295; BN Catalogue des incunables II, p. 138 (attributing printing to Gaspard Philippe); IGI 5608 (ca. 1500: attributing printing to Pierre Poulhac): not in Moreau, BL STC, or Adams.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Poetic Imitations of the "One and Only Virgil" 10 . LABBE, Philippe. Heroicae poeseos deliciae ad unius Virgilii imitationem. Ex summis poëtis Sannazario, Buchanano, Vida, Bembo ... aliisque. Selegit, recensuit, emendavit Philippus Labbe. Paris: Gaspard Meturas, 1646. SOLD

12mo, [12], 384 pp. Copper engraved vignette on first title, woodcut vignette on second title; woodcut initials and headpieces.

bound with:

LABBE, Philippe (ed.) COLLETET, Guillaume. Les couches sacrées de la vierge. Poeme heroique de Sannazar. Mis en prose françoise par le Sieur Colletet. Reveu de nouveau, & corrigé sur le Latin par le R.P.P.L.I. Paris: G. Meturas, 1646. 89, [1] pp., [3] leaves. The two works bound together in contemporary boards; head of spine defective; each side "enhanced" by a clumsy pen and ink single-line border; a.e.g. Inside front cover is the engraved armorial bookplate of Eugène de Béthune-Hesdigneul (1746-1823); on first title and first page of text is the early signature 'Maubert'.

FIRST EDITION of this anthology of 16th- and 17th-century Neo-Latin poetry composed in imitation of "the one and only Virgil" ('ad unius Virgilii imitationem'). In his preface, addressed to "young Christian students at Jesuit schools" ('Christianis adolescentibus collegiorum Societatis Iesu Alumnis'), the editor, Philippe Labbe (1607-1667), Jesuit scholar of Bourges, encourages them to try their hand at such imitations.

The collection opens with, appropriately, Jacopo Sannazaro's De Partu Virginis, a sacred poem on the Nativity in three books, which gained for its author the title of "The Christian Virgil"; other poets and works include Marco Girolamo Vida's three poems in the style of Virgil, Scacchia Ludus ("On the Game of Chess"), De Bombyce ("On the Silkworm"), and De Arte Poetica; Girolamo Fracastoro's Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus ("Syphilis or the French Disease"); the Scottish poet George Buchanan's popular Virgilian Latin verse translation of the Psalms; Daniel Heinsius's Virgilian eclogue on the death of Scaliger, and poems by Bembo, Poliziano, Sadoleto, et al.

The second work, often bound with the first, consists of the French prose translation of Sannazaro's De Partu Virginis, by Guillaume Colletet (1598-1659), and edited by Labbe.

§ Cioranescu 37324 and 37323; De Backer-Sommervogel IV, 1303: nos. 15 and 16.

E.K. SCHREIBER ______________________________________________________________________________________

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Sammelband of Four Important First Editions

11 . LACTANTIUS, Lucius Caelius Firmianus. Opera, quae quidem extant omnia ... accesserunt Xysti Betuleii Augustani pia ac erudita commentaria, nunc primum in lucem edita. (Comm. Sixt Birck). Basel: Heinrich Petri, March 1563. $7 ,500

Folio, [12] leaves, 559, [1] pp., [10] leaves; woodcut printer's device on title, with a different version at the end; historiated initials in various sizes; much use of Greek and occasional German (in gothic type).

bound with:

PANTALEON, Heinrich. Martyrum historia ... Pars secunda. Basel: Nicolaus Brylinger, 1563. [12], 160 (i.e. 361), [1] pp., [4] leaves; woodcut printer's device on title; historiated initials in various sizes; large woodcut representing the burning of John Huss on p. 1. (see photo).

bound with:

ARQUERIUS, Johannes. Dictionarium Theologicum, ex sacrosanctis bibliis. Basel: Bartholomaeus Franck, for J. Oporinus, August 1567. [8] leaves, 606 pp.; woodcut printer's device on title; woodcut initials in various sizes.

bound with:

FLINSPACH[IUS], Cunmann. Genealogiae Christi et omnium populorum tabulae: hoc est, De arcano Dei consilio nascendi Messiae ex semine Abrahae & Davidis ... libri tres. Basel: J. Oporinus, September 1567. [4] leaves (with last blank), 155, [1] pp.; genealogical tables in the text; woodcut printer's device on title; historiated initials in various sizes.

The four works bound together in contemporary German blind-tooled pigskin over beveled wooden boards; at center of upper cover is a panel portrait of Martin Luther signed with the initials "H. K." with the legend, NOSSE CVPIS FACIEM LUTH//ERI HANC CERNE TABELL (Haebler I, p. 233: viii); at center of rear cover is a panel portrait of Philipp Melanchthon, also signed "H.K." with the legend, FORMA PHILIPPE TVA EST//SED MENS TVA NESCIA PIN (Haebler I, p. 233: ix); surrounding these portraits are two roll-tooled borders, the outer one forming a stylized wreath, the inner one representing scenes of the Crucifixion, Nativity, Annunciation, and Resurrection (Haebler I, p. 232: 8); two intact brass clasps with catches. Binding in sound, solid condition, with some surface abrasions; light brown stain the lower outer corner of the last few leaves of Flinspach. PROVENANCE: On the first title-page is the ownership signature of J. Henricus Wolders (i.e. Johannes Heinrich Wolders, fl. 1625), with marginalia in his hand in Lactantius and a few in Pantaleon and Flinspach; inside front cover is the signature "Joseph Mendham, Sutton Coldfield"; this was the English clergyman and controversialist Joseph Mendham (1769-1856), curate of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, author of numerous works on points of controversy between Protestants and Catholic opponents (see ODNB).

I. FIRST EDITION of Lactantius with the monumental commentary by the Augsburg humanist Sixt Birck (latinized as Xystus Betuleius: 1501-1554). Birck's

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commentary contains many substantial passages in Greek and occasional German printed in gothic type. Lactantius (c. 240-c. 320), one of the early Christian apologists, and himself a convert to Christianity, was appointed by the Emperor Constantine tutor to his son Crispus. Lactantius's most important works are the "Divine Institutes," the earliest systematic account of the Christian attitude to life; De opificio Dei, an attempt to prove the existence of God from the marvels of the human body; De Ira Dei, dealing with God's punishment of human crime; and De Mortibus Persecutorum, describing with a wealth of lurid detail the horrible deaths of the enemies of the Church.

Lactantius's Latin style was much admired during the Renaissance and earned him the title of the "Christian Cicero."

II. FIRST EDITION of this continuation of John Foxe's second Latin Martyrology (Basel, 1559), which concentrated solely on martyrs in England and Scotland; Pantaleon's work is devoted to the history of the Reformation on the continent.

The polymath Heinrich Pantaleon (1522-1595) was not only a theologian, but also a highly successful physician who also established himself as a historical writer with his Church history, Chronographia Christianae Ecclesiae (1550); Pantaleon's most famous historical work, however, was his Prosopographia herorum atque illustrium virorum totius Germaniae, a greatly admired biographical

dictionary of famous Germans.

In 1559, the English martyrologist John Foxe (1516-1587), who was living as an exile in Basel, published a second expanded Latin martyrology with the printer J. Oporinus (the first was published in Strassburg, 1554). Due to the success of Foxe's work, Oporinus commissioned him to write a second part that would deal with the continent; however, Foxe was unable to do so and the publication was taken over by Pantaleon whose work is billed on its title-page as the Pars secunda of Foxe's 1559 Rerum in ecclesia gestarum commentarii; this was deemed logical since Pantaleon's work was the European counterpart of Foxe's work, focusing on German, French, and Italian martyrs.

In turn, Foxe's first English martyrology, the Actes and Monuments (London, 1563), derived many of its references on continental martyrs on the present work

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by Pantaleon: see E. Evenden & T.S. Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of John Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs' (2011), pp. 96-97.

III. FIRST (and only) EDITION of this Old Testament dictionary and gazetteer, containing over 5000 alphabetically arranged entries, which is the only work by Arquerius (Jean Archer, 1516-1588), a French Calvinist theologian from Montbéliard. Archer dedicates his book to Duke Christoph, a Lutheran prince of Württemberg, and to Johann Brenz, the Lutheran Reformer of South Germany.

Archer's work, which is quite rare, had considerable influence: thus, in William Patten's Calendar of Scripture, London, 1575 (STC 19476), the author states that he compiled his work from the from the Complutensian polyglot Bible, and the Dictionarium theologicum of Arquerius.

IV. FIRST EDITION of the main work of the Reformed theologian Cunmann Flinspach (1527-1571), deacon in Zweibrücken. In this ambitious book the author, set out to trace the Genealogy of Christ and set up genealogical tables of the descendants of "the Seed of

Abraham and David,” as illustrated by the numerous genealogical tables.

§ I. VD16, L42; Adams L-27; II. VD16, P222; Adams P-177 (cf. F-813); III. VD16, A3791; Adams A-2005; IV. VD16, F1633; Adams F-592.

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Printed in Three Colors, with 48 Engraved Plates

12 . LOSTELNEAU, Colbert de. Le Mareschal de bataille. Contenant le Maniment des armes. Les Evolutions. Plusieurs bataillons, tant contre l'Infanterie que contre la Cavalerie. Divers Ordres de batailles ... Dedié au Roi. Paris: Estienne Migon, for Toussainct Quinet, 1647. $4 ,800

!!!

Folio (leaf dimensions: 35 x 24 cm), [6] leaves, 459, [1] pp. (with blanks N4 and Gg4). Title and section titles printed in red and black, woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials; 184 diagrams of battle formations, including 11 folding, of which 135 are printed red and black, and 49 in red, black, and yellow, a few enhanced with small figurative woodcuts; 48 nearly full-page engravings representing men in arms. Contemporary calf, with some surface repairs, and rebacked utilizing fragments of original spine.

Only edition (some copies also bear the name of Antoine de Sommaville as publisher) of this practical military book, undertaken for King Louis XIV by the Marshall and Commander of the French Royal Guards.

This lavishly-produced folio is famous for its rich illustrations, which include a series of 48 handsome large engraved plates depicting soldiers in contemporary

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costume demonstrating the use of musket and pike. The 184 large diagrams (including 11 folding), of which 135 are printed red and black, and 49 in red, black, and yellow, represent military exercises and battle formations.

§ Duportal, pp. 87-88; Lipperheide 2080; Lipperheide Qb 43; Brunet III, 1178 (cf. Suppl. I, 894); Tchemerzine, Répertoire de livres à figures, 301-302; BN, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, 50.

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With 137 Woodcut Illustrations 13 . MAGNUS, Olaus. Histoire des pays septentrionaus ... en laquelle sont brievement, mais clerement deduites toutes les choses rares ou étranges, qui se treuvent entre les Nations Septentrionales. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1561. $3 ,800

8vo (167 x 95 mm), [8], 264 leaves; italic type; four pages of the dedicatory preface printed in civilité; Plantin device on title; 137 woodcut illustrations by Arnold Nicolai. 19th-century red morocco, triple fillets round sides, panelled spine, gilt turn-ins and edges (spine faded, front cover scuffed); faint waterstain in margin of title; armorial bookplate of Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates (1837-1903); overall a fine copy.

FIRST FRENCH EDITION of the popular abridged version of Olaus Magnus's History of the Northern Regions. Olaus Magnus (1490-1557) Archbishop of Uppsala, had published his unabridged version in Rome, 1555. Three years later, in 1558, Plantin managed to reduce this monumental work into a handy pocket Latin edition, by

omitting some of the lengthy digressions, and then the present French translation.

The 137 woodcuts, some of which bear the monogram of the woodcutter Arnold Nicolai, represent scenes of life in Scandinavia, covering an amazing range of subjects: geography (including city views, with local customs and occupations), methods of warfare and hunting, skiing and whaling, etc. It may be pointed out that Plantin's 1558 Latin edition contained only 135 woodcuts: two of these were replaced by four new ones in this French edition.

Copies of this edition exist also with a title-page bearing the Paris address of the bookseller Martin le Jeune (see Voet, loc. cit.).

§ Voet 1811A; Brunet III, 1302; Carter & Vervliet, Civilité Types, 44. See additional photos on next page…

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No. 13 : Olaus Magnus

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Five Dialogues in Praise of Virgil

14 . MARANTA, Bartolomeo. Lucullianarum quaestionum libri quinque … In quibus innumera ad artem poetarum facientia … praesertimque P. Virgilii Maronis. Basel: J. Oporinus, March 1564. SOLD

Folio (leaf size: 270 x 181 mm), 431 pp., [13] leaves; Oporinus's Arion printer's device on title and, on title-verso, a full-page woodcut coat-of-arms of the dedicatee Colantonio Caracciolo; five large handsome woodcut historiated initials. 18th century calf, spine richly gilt in compartments, with six raised bands spine, and two gilt-lettered titles; wear to spine extremities, joints and corners; paper evenly toned throughout due to quality of paper. Overall a fine copy.

ONLY EDITION of Maranta’s five dialogues containing the most fulsome praise for every aspect of Virgil's work. The title refers to the dedicatee Colantonio Caracciolo's villa at Lucullo, near Naples, where the dialogues are set. The interlocutors are all younger contemporaries of the author and include the literary figures Scipione Ammirato (1531-1601), Alfonso Cambi (1535-1570), Girolamo Colonna (1534-1586), et al.

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The conversations deal mostly with the study and praise of Virgil, specifically "about the beauties produced by Vergil's studied assortments of sounds, about the appropriateness of certain sounds to certain ideas, about effects of onomatopoeia. Their second major concern is with figures of speech and the use of words in general" (Weinberg, op. cit. below, I, pp. 171 and 492).

Bartolomeo Maranta (1500-1571) was an Italian physician, botanist—the family of flowering plants known as Marantaceae are named after

him—and literary theorist. The Lucullianarum quaestionum libri quinque, his major work of literary criticism, shows him to be an Aristotelian.

The book is surprisingly quite rare, and is represented in America by only three copies: Harvard, Folger, and Dartmouth.

§ VD16, M868; see B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance I, pp. 171-174; 492-494.

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With Censored “offending” Woodcuts 15 . OVID. Fastorum libri diligenti emendatione typis impressi aptissimisque figuris ornati commentatoribus Antonio Constantino Fanensi: Paulo Marso Piscinate ... additis. (Comm. Antonius Constantius & Paulus Marsus). Milan: Ludovicus de Bebulco (for Nicolaus de Gorgonzola), 17 April 1512. SOLD

Folio, [12], 199 leaves (without last blank); text in roman letter set within commentary in smaller roman; woodcut initials in various sizes; Gorgonzola's publisher's device [Kristeller, Die Italienischen Buchdrucker-und Verlegerzeichen, 70] on title, and Bebulco's printer's device [Kristeller 66] at the end; with seven woodcut illustrations, including one on the title-page showing Ovid flanked by his two commentators and incorporating the publisher's device of Ambrosius de Campis; six triptych woodcut illustrations in the text — one at the beginning of each of the six books of the Fasti. Bound in 18th-century vellum-backed decorated boards, with surface wear; outer margin of title-page repaired (not affecting any text); occasional minor stains; two woodcut illustrations censored in ink at a very early date (see below).

Very rare Milanese edition of the Fasti, Ovid's poetical calendar of the Roman year, with its various observances and festivals, written in elegiacs.

The poem in six books, one for each of the first six months of the year, was originally planned to cover the whole year, but was left unfinished at the time of Ovid's banishment by imperial edict to the West shore of the Black Sea. Ovid's design, as he tells us in his preface, was to study the calendar and show what events are commemorated on each day, and the origins of the various rites. It records day by day the rising and setting of the constellations, and explains the origins of the fixed festivals and rites noted in the calendar. It also relates the legends connected with particular dates, such as the founding of Rome on the 21st April. The scheme provides the author of the Metamorphoses the opportunity for telling afresh some of the old Greek myths.

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The woodcut illustrations, designed specifically for this edition, are imitations of those in the 1508 Venice edition printed by Tacuino (Essling 1126); offending portions of two woodcuts (a demonic figure, topless female deities, a group of men urinating) were inked over (but still visible) by a censor at a very early date.

The edition is extremely rare, and there appears to be no copy in any US collection.

§ Sander 5304; Ganda, Gorgonzola, p. 168, no. 24; Norton, Italian Printers: 1501-1520, p. 42; Sandal, Editori e tipografi a Milano I, no. 13, and III, 653; P. Kristeller, Die lombardische Graphik der Renaissance, 271 b.

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The Very Rare First Hoogstraten Edition of the Fables of Phaedrus

16 . PHAEDRUS. Fabularum Aesopiarum libri V. In gratiam studiosae Juventutis notis illustrati, cura Davidis ab Hoogstraten. (Ed. & Comm. David van Hoogstraten). Amsterdam: H. Wetstein, 1699. SOLD

12mo, [16] leaves (including engraved frontispiece-title), 151, [1] pp., [16] leaves; woodcut ornament on title; ruled in red throughout. Contemporary maroon morocco; double gilt fillet around sides; spine gilt in compartments with five raised bands, a.e.g.; corners worn; upper joint with old repair. Inside upper cover is the early 20th-century photographic bookplate of Esther Sophia Gaselee; on a front blank is the 18th-century calligraphic ownership inscription, 'Liber Josephi Browne 1737'; overall a fine copy, ruled in red throughout.

Very rare first appearance in print of Hoogstraten's school edition of the Aesopic Fables of Phaedrus with his profuse annotations aimed at schoolboys. The text of Phaedrus, edited by the Dutch scholar and poet David van Hoogstraten (1658-1724), enjoyed enormous success; two years after the appearance of the present edition, Hoogstraten's text was chosen to be used for a lavishly illustrated edition to be dedicated to the 13-year old crown prince of Nassau, Johann Wilhelm Friso (1687-1711); two years after that, in 1703, Hoogstraten produced a Dutch translation of these Fables.

The present edition, which Landwehr (op. cit. below) termed an "EDITIO PRINCEPS of a text made for students," contains elementary notes for very young students, and a Life of Phaedrus compiled by the Strassburg philologist Johannes Scheffer (1621-1679).

§ Schweiger II, p. 733; Lamb, Annales Phaedriani, 88; Landwehr, Emblem and Fable Books, F156; Ashby, The Fox and the Grapes ... a Checklist of Aesopic Fables in The Pierpont Morgan Library, p. 24. !

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E.K. Schreiber Specializing in pre-1700 Continental Books

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Telephone: (212) 873-3180; (212) 873-3181

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Established in 1971 by Ellen and Fred Schreiber, E. K. Schreiber Rare Books

specializes in continental books printed before 1700.

Ellen received her MLS from Simmons College and headed both the Union & Public Catalogs and the Filing & Searching Departments at Harvard's Widener Library.

Fred holds a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard and taught Classics at CUNY; he has contributed entries to The Oxford Companion to the Book, and other publications. He

is also the author of two reference catalogues: The Estiennes (1982), and Simon de Colines (1995).

We are members of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), and the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA). Our major fields of

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Bibles (in Greek & Latin).

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